Antimicrobial Peptides in Gut Health: A Review

Abstract

Animal antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), known as broad-spectrum and high-efficiency antibacterial activity, are important effector molecules in innate immune system. AMPs not only have antimicrobial, antiviral and antitumor effects but also exhibit important effects in vivo, such as anti-inflammatory response, recruiting immune cells, promoting epithelial damage repair, and promoting phagocytosis of bacteria. However, research on the application of AMPs is incomplete and controversial. This review mainly introduces the classification of AMPs, biological functions, as well as the mechanisms of action, expression rules, and nutrition regulation from three perspectives, aiming to provide important information for the application of AMPs.

Dietary supplementation with a microencapsulated complex of thymol, carvacrol, and cinnamaldehyde improves intestinal barrier function in weaning piglets

“…Cathelicidins are a family of α ‐helical animal antimicrobial peptides that mainly exist in vertebrate 42 . The pig‐derived cathelicidin family originates from bone marrow cells and is often stored in neutrophils as a precursor peptide 43 . As a common probiotic, Lactobacillus strains have been reported to facilitate the synthesis and secretion of antimicrobial peptides in the intestine of animals 44,45 .…”

“…42 The pig-derived cathelicidin family originates from bone marrow cells and is often stored in neutrophils as a precursor peptide. 43 As a common probiotic, Lactobacillus strains have been reported to facilitate the synthesis and secretion of antimicrobial peptides in the intestine of animals. 44,45 Lactobacillus may therefore also play an important role in the process of increasing intestinal Cathelicidins' antimicrobial peptide levels by MEEO.…”

The Role of Intestinal Mucosal Barrier in Autoimmune Disease: A Potential Target

“…The innate immune system is composed of antibacterial substances such as mucins and AMPs, which have the non-specific ability to eliminate harmful microorganisms and have been proved to play an important role in maintaining intestinal mucosal barrier function (6,25). Especially, AMPs secreted by intestinal epithelial cells are important effector molecules in the innate immune system, which not only contribute to the local containment of pathogens but also exert the effect of antiinflammatory and recruiting immune cells (26)(27)(28).…”

Antimicrobial peptide human β-defensin-2 improves in vitro cellular viability and reduces pro-inflammatory effects induced by enteroinvasive Escherichia coli in Caco-2 cells by inhibiting invasion and virulence factors’ expression

“…Therefore, research is focused on the development of alternative therapies. In this context, AMPs, heterogeneous and amphipathic peptides synthesized as propeptides and cleaved by specific proteases in their active form, have received widespread attention due to several advantages observed compared with traditional antibiotics, as: broad antimicrobial spectrum, low frequency to drug resistance, absence of toxic residues formation ( Gong et al., 2021 ), ease of synthesis due to their short size ( Hansen et al., 2020 ), rapid killing activity and the ability to act on bacteria without being affected by resistance mechanisms. Furthermore, AMPs modulate the immune defenses of the host and regulate the composition of microbiota (which conversely is often destroyed by conventional antibiotic therapies) and the renewal of the intestinal epithelium ( Gubatan et al., 2021 ).…”